Minimum wage divides 14th Congressional candidates

With President Barack Obama renewing his call to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 last week, the issue has heated up just in time for the stretch run of congressional campaigns.

That includes the 14th Congressional District served by Republican Randy Hultgren of Winfield, who is being challenged by Democrat Dennis Anderson of Gurnee. Hultgren doesn't support Obama's push.

"I want to create jobs," Hultgren said during an interview with the Daily Herald editorial board. "My question is how many jobs does it create? And my fear is that it doesn't create jobs, and, in a way, it costs jobs."

He views minimum wage jobs as entry-level positions for young people on the path to higher-paying careers, such as his 18-year-old daughter, Kylie. She's been employed at an Old Navy store for about two years, having received two raises above Illinois' $7.25 minimum wage.

"For a college freshman, it's not bad," Hultgren said. "She's grateful for it. This is something that is training her for other career opportunities that she may have later on."

And those are the kinds of jobs and wages Hultgren said lawmakers should focus on.

"If the economy is growing, jobs are growing," Hultgren said. He pointed to North Dakota, which has a booming economy thanks to recent oil deposit discoveries, as an example of ways to drive job growth.

"I do think that's the game-changer in our nation, our own energy," he said. "I never would have guessed in my wildest dreams that we could be an exporter of energy, and yet we could be."

But Anderson is a fan of neither ongoing exploration for fossil fuels nor the idea that a higher minimum wage kills jobs.

"The biggest problem facing the economy, and facing business, right now is a lack of aggregate demand," Anderson said during his editorial board interview. "People just don't have the bucks to spend."

Increasing the minimum wage, he said, provides more income for people to spend.

Part of the problem is the minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation for decades, Anderson said.

Last December, the Pew Research Center published a study showing the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at a value of $8.56 in 2012 dollars. The federal minimum wage has lost 5.8 percent of its purchasing power to inflation since it was raised to the current $7.25 level in 2009.

Anderson said the time is ripe for both increasing the federal minimum wage and permanently tying future increases to the rate of inflation.

"I think that the $10.10 proposal that's out there is good," Anderson said. "It has to be phased to prevent any shocks on small business."

Potentially fueling Democratic turnout on Nov. 4, and benefiting Anderson, is an advisory referendum on Illinois ballots asking voters if the state's minimum wage should rise from $8.25 to $10 on Jan. 1.

Several other states and cities have either recently voted to increase their minimum wages or will have ballot questions on the issue this fall.

Washington state has one of the highest minimum wage at $9.32, but Seattle's city council recently agreed to gradually raise it to $15. San Francisco has a minimum wage of $10.74, but voters will be asked in November about increasing it to $15 per hour by 2018.

Minnesota voted to increase its minimum wage to $9.50 by 2016 earlier this year. And California, Connecticut and Maryland all recently passed laws that will increase their minimum wages to at least $10.